Week 11 (of 13) of Soul University’s Holiday Blues Busters Series.
Valentine’s Day around the world is known for, it’s gotten to be like Christmas, it’s gotten to be rather commercial, it’s lost it’s roots and it’s origins of celebrating a rather obscure saint, Saint Valentine’s. On this next step of our journey together to create a more happy, healthy life, I invite you to introduce into life on a regular basis, random acts of kindness. Random acts of kindness will spice up every day, especially when it comes to romance.
You like to have fun, right? We’ll sprinkle in a little bit of fun factor in these random acts of kindness. Fun is the total secret sauce to helping random acts of kindness be stress free.
So let’s begin with defining a random act of kindness. Have you ever walked down the street and you happened to pass by a parking meter that might have clicked into expired? And you just, for grins and giggles, tossed a few coins in so that the person who was about to get possibly a ticket, you saved him from a ticket?
Have you ever done something where you surprised a complete stranger? You opened a door for them? You possibly chipped in a couple bucks for them when they were shy a few bucks at the checkout lane? Have you mailed off a letter to someone who did something for you that, to them, they may think it’s… quite small of an act. But to you it made a world of difference.
Random acts of kindness are one of the key ways to honor our intuitive nature of compassion and kindness. Compassion and kindness. Another way to do random acts of kindness is to be simply compassionate, starting with ourselves. Random acts of kindness. When it comes to romance, I don’t know about you. When I go to put on my shoe and my toe feels a piece of paper tucked away in there and I pull out that little piece of paper and it’s a note from my partner, wishing me a lovely day.
Or I open up the refrigerator door and there’s a special cupcake with a little message on it saying I love you. Or it could very well be coming home from a very grueling trip. To find my home and all of its surroundings is just sparkling and brimming with a welcoming feeling. A bunch of people have decided to get together and really spice things up.
Random acts of kindness and romance is a way to demonstrate — daily — how much my partner means to me. Thank you notes. Little acts that they didn’t expect. Nor would they come to expect it. Part of the fun factor with random acts of kindness is creativity. And when we bump up our creativity, we bump up our ability to be more awake and aware. Did you catch that? When we bump up our random acts of kindness, being quite creative, we become more awake and aware.
I don’t know about you, but to me, an awake and aware person is sexy. And what I mean by that is, when someone is really paying attention to who I am and what I’m doing. And they have a gentle curiosity. A compassionate confidence. Let me unfold those two terms. Gentle curiosity. They’re just simply curious, unlike the possible trial lawyer who’s being invasive by their curiosity; being cross examined. That’s not the type of curiosity that I’m talking about. The curiosity is the type of thing where someone just simply observes something and tucks that little observation away for future use. It might be that they spotted me smiling at something when I was out shopping. But I didn’t buy it. And then they later purchased it without me knowing it, and it’s a surprise gift later down the line.
That’s a good example of gentle curiosity. It might be that they witnessed me watching or reading certain topics that have captured my interest. And they’ve decided that, yeah, why don’t we go see a film on that topic. Or they rent DVDs to have a fun night in. Gentle curiosity is often what I discover really extraordinary parents have for their children.
They watch their children play. And they see what their children are interested in that moment. And then they try to supplement that interest by introducing something that aids that interest. It’s that natural curiosity and building that curiosity. And gentle curiosity means there’s no expectations attached to the outcome.
Meaning, if someone decides to rent a DVD because they saw me reading a particular topic. They rent the DVD and I really don’t have any interest in watching the DVD. They’re not going to get all bent out of shape of the fact that they went through extra effort to rent that DVD. The fun factor often means we dive into another point for this journey. That point? Create a strings free feeling around random acts of kindness.
And what I mean by strings free. There’s a Buddhist saying that expectations are a path to pain and suffering. If you’ve ever examined expectations that have come up. I know for myself, whenever I have allowed myself the ignorance, of expecting something. For example, expecting you, who are listening to this class. To take a moment to share a donation to say thank you for this moment in time of sharing this information with me.
When I started putting information out on the web, I had an expectation that people would naturally think, “Wow! Okay! I did get something out of this. This is worth a buck. And they would chip in a buck.” And when no bucks were coming, I felt sad. I allowed an expectation to taint a larger goal. A larger desire to share wisdom.
So with letting go of expectations, the sneaky part, ladies and gentlemen, about random acts of kindness and keeping it fun, It is to do the act of kindness and then let it go. Forget that it was even done. What I mean by that is, once an act of kindness is done, it’s much like doing an action where you really don’t give it a second thought.
Like breathing. You do it. You don’t really think about it. So letting go of expectations is an eye opening process. I know in my life, I thought I had no expectations around something. But deep down, there was a subconscious expectation, a string, that I was not aware of. And so a random act of kindness, if it’s done in a form of an IOU? Meaning, I’m going to do something kind for you, but it’s a chip that I’m going to use later down the line.
It’s hey, “Do you remember when I blah blah blah blah blah.” And you’re like, “Yeah?” And I say, “ Well! Now I need some help .” What I’m really doing is guilt tripping you into something. So that random act of kindness was not really an act of kindness. It was an act of manipulation. And I don’t know about you, but if I feel manipulated, it adds a lot of stress into my life. Stress I would prefer not to have.
For random acts of kindness, how creative do you dare be? I’ll offer this simple little exercise to consider to sprinkle in random acts of kindness.
First, I invite you to consider thinking outside of your comfort zone when it comes to random acts of kindness. Meaning, being kind to someone you may never have met before. Or being kind to someone who, let’s just say you’ve got some stuff to clean up with. Maybe you have a grudge. Maybe there is some sort of feud.
Something’s going on where the relationship just doesn’t feel quite as cozy as you would like it to be. Try a random act of kindness with that person. When I do a random act of kindness for someone that I know I got a little maintenance to do with, it’s a powerful teacher for me. It’s a very powerful teacher in becoming more awake and aware of what’s going on with my desire to do this random act of kindness?
So the type of random acts of kindness that I do, I generally like to do them where I challenge myself to do them where there’s no way they can figure out who did it. Anonymous acts of kindness. Now unfortunately, anonymous random acts of kindness for control freaks will add stress to their life.
I’ll give you a very interesting real life example. Once upon a way back when I took a fabulous cruise and because of the cost of the cruise, my travel agent was very grateful. My travel agent decided to have a huge bouquet of flowers delivered to my stateroom. So when I walked into my cabin, the stateroom, there’s this magnificent bouquet of flowers, but it was over the top huge.
It took up practically all of the dresser that it was sitting on. So I smiled. And I enjoyed them. But I realized that these needed to be appreciated by more than just me. So I took the bouquet of flowers, and I knew one of the primary performers for that particular cruise. I happened to know who she was.
I’d met her before. I had adored her singing. I think she’s a fabulous person. And so I took the bouquet of flowers and I snuck up to the lounge where nobody was in it. And I put a nice little placemat down on top of the piano. And I put the bouquet there. And I addressed it to the singer. And I wrote: “From an adoring fan! I’m glad you’re on board.”
I did not sign my name. No one saw me do it. I did not know that this particular singer had a little bit of a… insecurity streak or a control streak. She really started wondering who gave her the flowers. She really wanted to know. She made quite the spectacle of it. And to my utter surprise someone stepped up and claimed that they’re the one who gave her the flowers! And I’m like “Really?”
So when this person claimed that he was the person who put the flowers up on the piano. I’m like, okay. What do I do here? Do I confront this person? Would that be kind? In the bigger scheme of things, it really didn’t matter to me who she thought was the admirer. So I let it go. So that random act of kindness taught me quite a lesson. In reality that there are a number of people out there more than willing and able to cash in on the graciousness of others. And if I’m concerned about controlling that, then it may prevent me from doing another random act of kindness in the future.
So on this Valentine’s Day, I invite you to do a random act of kindness. Call someone up. Let them know how much they mean to you. Granted, it’s not an anonymous random act of kindness. By letting people know, an in person conversation. Something a little more involved than a text or an email. Let them know how much you care for them, I think is a wonderful way to show some kindness. It might seem random to that person, it’s a good kickstart into the day.
The best I can offer you on this as we wrap up this series of enjoying a day, any day, more fully, is to remind you of a suggestion that I have repeated often in this series. I remind you to stay more in the childlike wonder and explorer mode in life. Allow that old saying of: “life is a journey, not a destination.” You’ve heard that before, I’m sure you have. Allowing ourselves to be curious. Wanderers. Wonderers. Allow the magic of discovery to build some more miracles in daily life.
Versus being the Analyzer. The Critic. The Judge, where there is a need to be right or wrong, in or out, high or low. I’ve often found myself whenever I feel this pang of pain inside me because I’ve been forgotten. Or I think I’ve been forgotten. Or I’m not loved. Or not recognized. Or not appreciated. It’s because I’m allowing my inner Critic to judge events that I have no right to judge.
I’ll conclude with inspiring the exploratory wanderer, wonderer with some prose that I wrote called Imagine If You Will. Allow that curiosity, that wanderer in you — to take a moment to come out and play — any time.
Imagine, if you will, an image of a potter,
as she or he spins a wheel,
molding and shaping something. A vase, perhaps.
A vase to fill with a variety of brilliant, fresh, fragrant flowers.
As your senses take in those beautiful flowers,
so carefully arranged, in your vase.
Which flowers do you see first?
Which flower seems to hide?
Which flowers are brightly colored?
Which flower seems to wane and wither away?
As the last flower fades
try to imagine all the people that have traveled
in and out of your life.
People you think about.
Care about.
Laugh and cry about.
Loved or not.
These people have played a hand in the process of shaping the person you are right now.
Hands holding the pieces of a broken heart that helps you to heal.
Hands that have passionately embraced your body and soul with a love so fiery hot you feel as if you never could grow old.
Hands sheltering you from other hands in times of trouble.
Hands gently pushing when you needed to grow.
Hands guiding you to others.
Others who . . .
Who provides you with warmth and energy.
Who provides you with wonderful thoughts and emotions?
Who provides you a full sense of feeling alive and loved?
Who seems distant, almost forgotten, thinking of yesterday?
And most importantly,
who shares your hopes,
your presence,
your dreams?
Who above all else in life
allows life
to flower to its fullest.
Imagine who this is.
Imagine who you are.
Imagine, if you will.
Alright, that’s it. Lecture time is done. Time to get into our conference call classroom. And in class, we’re going to explore more the information that you just experienced in this lecture. To register for the series, click the links at the bottom of the page. Follow the registration instructions to join us for our weekly, live, lively, conference call classroom. Get ready for some wonderful laughs, some ah hahs, all from the comfort of your phone.
I look forward to meeting you and to being of service. And now, time for class.
Soul: Alrighty, ladies and gentlemen. Random acts of kindness, another way to ease our way back into the routines that may have gotten jiggled throughout the holidays. I want to welcome everybody back.
Cheryl: Thank you. Thank you. Happy to be here.
Marsha: Thank you.
Soul: Gentle curiosity, mostly done through observation. Gentle curiosity. Gentle. Curiosity. Out of curiosity. Now do you see why I focus on our Chaos Committee and our Pay Me What I’m Worth journey so much? Now do you see why I want them to quiet down and retire?
Marsha: Yes, absolutely. I see it.
Soul: Can you have gentle curiosity while observing, if the Chaos Committee is in full swing?
Cheryl: No, not at all.
Soul: To remind our wonderful listeners who may be joining us for the first time, what are some of the Chaos Committee members?
Marsha: You mentioned one, and that was definitely, if we are giving these members a name, the Controller. Definitely.
Cheryl: Yeah. Doubt. Shame.
Rik: The Judge and the Critic.
Cheryl: Guilt. Worry.
Soul: Judge. Critic. Perfectionist. Yeah. Controller. Competitor. All those little voices inside our head that something’s this or that or right or wrong or something or other. It’s almost impossible to be gently curious with all that noise going on, right?
Marsha: Yeah.
Cheryl: Yep, tugging you back and forth.
Soul: Everybody on this class has gone through this series once before and they’ve also been through the Pay Me What I’m Worth series. What are you noticing when it comes to random acts of kindness in your life? Are you beginning to recognize that there are random acts of kindness daily?
Marsha: Yes, I especially notice it that people are giving me random acts of kindness. I sure am noticing that people that I come across are actually being very kind with me in many ways. I’ve had some acts of kindness just come to me out of the blue.
Cheryl: I noticed myself and everybody else doing random acts of kindness all the time now. Because I was thinking of today. I was counted up and I had 3 or 4 that I just automatically do all the time. I went to the post office today. Had to stand in line, of course, and got stuck right in front of the door. I just became the door person. Everybody that was coming out with all of their big boxes and packages that they had, I would just open the door for them. They were very grateful that they didn’t have to balance everything and were able to make it out of the door easily.
Soul: Sweet!
Rik: I’m not sure what other people consider random acts of kindness. I think there’s a lot of definitions for them. I think kindness can be cruel sometimes. As maybe the paradox of it. Being kind to someone doesn’t always mean giving them what they want and what they need. I’ve always tried to conduct myself — if I could give somebody something, didn’t matter if I needed it, I would. If I felt they needed it, and they expressed desire to have it to them. I don’t know if common courtesy is an active form of kindness.
Cheryl: I think this day and age, it is more.
Rik: I don’t know. One time I found two children on the side of the road. Their mother had abandoned them. I took care of them for three months. Paid for their food, their diapers, and I don’t know if that’s a random act of kindness.
Soul: That definitely is a yes. I would call that a random act of kindness, most definitely.
Rik: It could be a selfish act, though, in that I love to take care of kids. And I love to be loved by them. Just depends on your perspective.
Cheryl: And you didn’t want them to go to social services and be…
Rik: No, they could, have a normal sort of…
Soul: You get into that philosophical question, Rik, of is there such a thing as a selfless act? Philosophers have been going around that wheel for centuries.
Rik: Obviously you can’t do anything only through yourself, so all acts are through yourself. So if that is selfish, or selfless, you can make the determination yourself.
Soul: One of the more interesting aspects that I’ve thrown at philosophers who get into that argument or that need to conjecture. There are different branches of spirituality that have said for centuries now, we’re all one. We’re all interconnected. We’re all part of each other. So that be the case, there is no selfless act then.
Rik: There you go.
Soul: We also talked about expectations in this random acts of kindness segment. Expectations. How has… expectations dwindled in your lives. I’m assuming they’ve dwindled in your lives since you’ve been part of Seoul University and you’ve taken this journey. Am I making a correct assumption or am I reading something into it?
Cheryl: Absolutely correct on my end of it. In fact, today I was at work. The person apologized to me thinking that I didn’t have a very fun time. And I said, no worries, I have no expectations. And I absolutely do not have any expectations of what my day will be. I just go and I be. And whatever comes up is just fine. Before I would have had expectations, and then I would have been grumpy because of the expectations didn’t go the way I wanted.
Soul: No. [ Sarcastically]
Cheryl: Yeah, I’ve been able to drop that and it’s wonderful.
Rik: I have discovered about myself that if I am living in the present, I don’t have expectations. It’s only those who wish to live or in the past that have expectations of anything. There is no future. There is really no past unless you want to drag it up like I do sometimes. All there is the present. You can project to the future. But all there is now, and even when the future happens, it happens in the now. There is not that much that I have seen in my life that I can do about the future. But there is a lot I can do about the right now.
Soul: Very true. Very true. The reason why I dabbled expectations in there is because every now and then I’ll stumble across someone who, “Oh, I’ve done so many good things for so many people. And I’ve done this and I’ve done that. I’ve been so kind. And I’ve been so helpful and I’ve been . . .” They seem to think that it’s putting some sort of currency into some sort of account where now they’re expecting something back. Yeah?
Marsha: Yeah.
Soul: Anybody ever fall into that trap? I’ve done this, I’ve done that now why is this happening to me?
Cheryl: I’ve had people do that to me, yeah, for sure.
Rik: Certainly. That’s just for me that was a progression and a maturity — spiritual, physical, and emotional maturity to have that realization and get past that. To think that there’s some kind of karmic cycle that where I’m building up a bank or something.
Soul: Exactly. Exactly.
Rik: And all the lives I’ve saved! Damn! My life should be saved ten times over. People should respect me. I’ve saved hundreds of people’s lives. Nobody gives a shit about that. When you’re bleeding on the side of the road, let’s face it, I don’t have a tattoo on my face that says, “I’ve helped all these people. You should help me.” And I’m not ignorant any of them give a damn what I’ve done with my whole life, or for humanity.
Soul: See now you bring up an interesting angle to random acts of kindness. For example, opening up a door for someone. How many times have you experienced opening up a door for someone and they just look at you like they expected you to open up the door. There’s no thank you. There’s no smile. They’re like it’s about time.
Cheryl: Yep. [ Lively laughter!]
Marsha: That’s true. Yeah. I’ve experienced that.
Soul: So it’s interesting how expectations on the flip side, we expect people to be kind to us, but there seems to be the missing component is, wouldn’t it be nice for you to be kind back?
Marsha: Yeah.
Soul: Hello! What have you done for random acts of kindness lately? Let’s hear some stories. Have you plugged the parking meter for somebody. Have you done something anonymously possibly? Of course, if you share it then… If that person happens to listen to this particular class, so much for the anonymous part, but…
Marsha: I do remember one time I took the trip to New York. On the way back, we hit a storm and we weren’t sure if we were going to get anywhere. I was at the bus station and these two folks were just trying, they just wanted to get home so badly and they didn’t have enough money to get a ticket. My random act of kindness towards them was to just buy them a ticket so they could get home.
Soul: Nice.
Marsha: Yeah. I don’t want anybody to be stuck in a storm. Are you kidding me?
Cheryl: For sure.
Soul: Marsha, I’m just curious. You mean to say you haven’t folded somebody’s laundry while you’re at home. Or done a little something that they would normally do, take out the garbage, or…
Marsha: I guess I don’t really view it as a random act of kindness, I just view it as, hey, we, it has to get done. I don’t care who does it as long as it gets done. We just cooperate in our house. Now that my mom is 89 years old. I know that her knees, she’s having a hard time walking. But she’s so determined that she’ll walk anyway. She uses a cane now. So I’m doing more things for her now. Yes. Absolutely.
Soul: Okay. See, I thought you were doing some random acts of kindness, even though you may be a little bit of a homebody. All right.
Cheryl: My biggest one today was I got to pay back my son in law. As I leave in the morning, we have a gate that I have to get out and do the combination. And a lot of times it’s raining and it’s really muddy. A lot of times he’s working out in the yard, so he’ll run up there and get the gate for me. A little while ago I was up there doing laundry. They came home and pulled up to the gate. So I ran out there and opened it for him. He was just thrilled, because he always does it for me. He thanked me about three times. Thank you for getting the gate. Thank you. That was mine for today. I do have a bigger one. A couple years ago, when the lava was coming close to Pahoa, a lot of the… businesses and different places had to move so that they be in a little better place in case the lava did come through. And the urgent care center in Pahoa had moved. I didn’t know anything about it. But I was looking on Craigslist for something and I happened to see that they needed somebody to paint them a couple of signs. So my random act of kindness, was that I answered the email. Painted them a couple signs for their temporary place so that everybody would know where the urgent care center was in Pahoa.
Soul: Sweet!
Cheryl: It felt good to… do something for the community that I know would probably help somebody if they go zooming by it if they didn’t know it was there.
Soul: Totally. That’s very sweet. Rik’s going: I don’t do random act of kindness for nobody. I thank you very much. My random act of kindness is not running somebody over the road.
Rik: It just depends on how you look at it. People perceive my day as, they have these fantasy stuff about my day. But today my day, I did two loads of laundry. Did the dishes. Joe got the stuff and I’m going to cook dinner pretty soon here and… I don’t consider any of that stuff random acts of kindness. Somebody else to do the laundry, even though it’s mostly all mine. I have always tried to encourage people no matter if they suck at surfing or just that they’re out there trying and they’re out in the water. And I think that’s why so many people tolerate me, is because they know that I love surfing and that I am a very encouraging person.
From taking Pay Me What I’m Worth I realized something for myself, a lot of things, but one of the major things I realized, though, in surfing is, I can let anyone have any wave that I want them to have. Cause I catch so many waves, that I don’t have to be greedy about it.
I just let them have the wave. Before I took Pay Me What I’m Worth, I’m like, “Nope, you’re gonna work for this wave. And if I can catch it, you are not catching it.” Now this has been going on for 40 years, okay? But now I’ve come to the realization where, Dude, you can take any wave you want, go ahead.
Rik: I’ll allow you to, sitting next to me. Even if I have the position. Because I know I can catch any wave I want, anytime, anywhere. And it doesn’t bother me. I enjoy watching them catch the wave. I want them to. I encourage them to. And that has opened a lot of doors for me, and shut a lot of doors. Surfers don’t like that shit.
Cheryl: Why are you being nice to me?
Rik: Yeah.
Soul: Can you understand why I sprinkled the topic of random acts of kindness into our Holiday Blues Buster series? Does anybody have a have an idea why I sprinkled that in there?
Rik: It’s a holiday themed thing. People are always trying to be giving and kind, aren’t they?
Soul: There’s some truth to that, yeah.
Rik: I wanted to say another random act of kindness. I was just thought of one that happened yesterday. This lady called up that Cheryl’s had a relationship with for about a year. And Cheryl goes on a walk with her like every week. I saw her at the post office the other day and she was absolutely distraught, emotionally distraught. And trying to drag me into the drama and the bullshit, then, cause she’s Cheryl’s friend.
Then she calls up on Sunday, and I had just kicked back. I was watching YouTube, some, lesson stuff. And she wants to come over to the house, basically, and I was like, what the hell? She’s totally mentally distraught. Oh, she’s having problems. So what do I say? She wanted to pay me for some web work that I did for her. And I said it’s not necessary to pay me for any web work. You just keep the money.
Cause right then I knew that I do not want to be involved in that kind of crap. Then she says I want to pay you somehow. So I said hey, “I know how you could pay me back, and it would be a really cool way. Why don’t you get on a call with us? One call.” She goes like this “You know the phone problems that we’re having.” I’m like, “No. You just put in a hard line.” And then she goes, “Oh, my battery’s fine. I’m sorry. I just can’t talk right now.” Random act of kindness was right there. I offer her gold, to get on a meet and greet call with us. Because I felt honestly in my heart that it would help her. And she refused it all wholeheartedly. Adamantly lied to me. Treated me like a schmuck. Guess what? I don’t answer the phone when that person calls anymore.
Soul: Now you now you bring up the whole topic of how we think throwing money at something is an act of kindness. Actually, it’s not. We’ve thrown hundreds of trillions of dollars at problems that still exist today, haven’t we?
Marsha: Isn’t that manipulation?
Soul: Yes. Yes. Yeah, we talked about that, too, in this one. Gratitude versus manipulation. Once again, that rings a bell. Chapter 10. As we become aware that the holiday season has really begun to wind down, I do look at the fact that most people probably already think the holiday season has wound down by the end of January, but we are still in the fumes of it.
We still have Valentine’s Day creeping up. That seems to be a fairly notable holiday. The manipulation that goes on during the holidays is so much more intense. Sometimes it happens without us even recognizing it because it was wired into us as kids. Do you have any reflections how what you thought was being kind when you were growing up? Now you look at it going, oh my god, what a controlling asshole I was.
Let me give you a really good example that I grew up in. I was completely unaware of until I had my eyes opened. During the holidays, it was a tradition growing up mother would make all these cookies. We had to have at least two dozen different kinds of cookies. So the cookie making process would begin about a week before Christmas. And then the kitchen was a flurry for a good four or five days. Baking up hundreds and hundreds of cookies so that you could put this plate of cookies together. And then we were, as kids, sent scurrying about the neighborhood, delivering plates of cookies to all these people because we thought we were just being so festive and so kind.
And then, years later, after she had passed, and I had gotten to talk to some neighbors, and hear the other side of the story. It’s like they didn’t have the heart to tell my mom they generally gave those cookies out at the office party or something like that because they did not see my mother as a kind woman. They saw her as a controlling person. And they saw that plate of cookies as an IOU. How many gifts are given with the thought of kindness, but there’s a little fumes, a little thread, a little seasoning of an IOU. Hey, didn’t I buy you that expensive . . ..
Cheryl: Yeah. Huh.
Soul: For those tistening in of this class and your credit card statements are now coming in and you’re looking at what you actually did pay for the holidays. I think a random act of kindness for yourself is just recognize that should you have the funds to pay those bills, even if you’re paying them through the end of August, I hope you recognize how blessed you are compared to how many people in this world right now don’t have that option. Right?
Marsha: Oh, my goodness. You have no idea how much I know and I’m grateful and know how blessed I am. You know me. I’m listening to people when I have to call back to do intakes for them. I can’t believe some of the problems. I was really shocked today when I heard this one gentleman tell me that he had finally got into a place for the first time after nine years of being homeless. Nine years. I can’t even imagine nine years on being homeless. Wow.
Soul: To really tune up your ability to reach outside your comfort zone. When a friend asks for help. Listen to them, even if that friend has asked for the same help over and over again. Maybe it’s time to do a random act of kindness to really get down to the root of why are they always asking. Are they always asking because you’re always denying them the help? [Group laughter!]
Marsha: Ha. Yeah.
Soul: Are they always asking for help because they get what I call band aids? One of the reasons why I do not give people who are asking for money out on the street. It’s wait a minute. If you really do want to switch things up so that you don’t have to be begging for money, I’ll be more than happy to help you. But just like Rik was saying, you’ve got this person who is more than happy to throw money at Rik to pay for some services that Rik did, but the moment, Rik, you asked her to do something that would be meaningful for you, she disappeared, right?
Rik: Yes. Meaningful for her. For herself. She didn’t want that. She wanted someone to whine to and someone to… fuel her drama. I don’t need that. I can make my own.
Soul: Is listening to somebody’s whining an act of kindness?
Rik: No. I’m not doing that.
Soul: I have encountered over the past 90 days, a rather dramatic change in my life. As I reach out for help. Most people are like they want to help, They can’t help because they don’t know anybody who can help me in the way that I needed help except for to point me to an online service where that’s just basically where everybody goes. And I thought, it’s interesting because the people that I have reached out to ask for help. They have what I am looking for. It’s readily available.
Now, what is intriguing is it would inconvenience them. What I discover that people — they have the best intentions — but they really don’t want to be inconvenienced. It’s actually a blessing for me, because when the time comes, and it will, the roles will be reversed. I will be more than happy to extend myself. I will risk thinking outside and being outside my comfort zone. And then I’ll remind them, I could have easily have said no, and I could have said no with a very clear conscience. Because you said no to me.
Times have you been told no, and then the roles are reversed, and you stood on the higher ground, and you said yes. I’ll let you think about that. Because we are now in a time, ladies and gentlemen, where we need to be saying yes to the point that it’s not harming ourselves. I’m going to close this random act of kindness with the concept that it is not an act of kindness to be a martyr. What do I mean by that?
Marsha: To be a martyr is to go above and beyond to the point where you are hurting yourself in the process.
Soul: Bingo. Bingo.
Cheryl: Sometimes the Controller makes you that way. It just takes over. I have found myself in the past being that way. That I didn’t mean to be a martyr, but I, the Controller just wouldn’t let go and just kept going.
Soul: That’s very common, Cheryl, in caregiving situations. Whether it’s a parent caring for a child. Or their family members. Sometimes you just think you don’t have a choice, right?
Cheryl: Yeah. Yeah.
Soul: So in the process of a random act of kindness, I’m going to ask each and every person listening. When you do a random act of kindness, I hope it brings an immediate sense of joy. Absolute immediate sense of joy, and then you release it. There’s no IOU. There’s no thread. There’s no… karmic bank deposits that’s happening. You just enjoy it for the thrill of the moment, like the holidays are. That moment where you get to meet someone you haven’t seen all year. Or someone surprises you by sending you a note or those little magical things that happened during the holidays. That’s what this random act of kindness — by sprinkling them in here and there throughout the entire year. We can carry on that seasonal joy. Yeah.
Marsha: Yeah
Soul: All right I’m just gonna let everybody know up front. We’ve got just a couple more classes to go before we wrap up this year’s Holiday Blues Busters. Now next week we look at post holiday healthy habits. To focus on when does a habit become a bad habit. When does a good habit become a bad habit. And we laid the ground for that discussion in this very class today. Make sure our habits really do serve us and those that we do serve. In gratitude, I bow to Rik and Cheryl and Marsha for being a steady group of souls on this journey. Thank you again.
Marsha: Thank you.
Cheryl: Thank you, Soul.
Soul: It has been a blast, and before you know it, we’ll be all done with this series. Have a fabulous one everybody. Aloha.
Marsha: Aloha.
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Aloha!